Buying a house with private sewers - should I be worried?

lotstodotoday

I'm a FTB and my solicitor has pointed out that the drains and sewers will remain private. It's a new build. Is this broadly speaking normal and doors anyone know what the cost of maintenance might be? I know there will be an annual charge for the shared garden areas but this has not been mentioned. I have never really given much thought to how sewers are maintained! Not sure if this is something to worry about or not!

G_M

Do the private sewers discharge into a public sewer? Or a septic tank? Or a cespit? Or directly ino a river?

Where is the tank/pit/river etc?

the answer to this question will result in different advice being offered!

lotstodotoday

I assume they empty into a public sewer. There isn't a septic tank out anything like that. It was just noted in a letter from our solicitor and wasn't mentioned during viewings. It may well be nothing to worry about but I just feel a bit ignorant! The are 20 houses on the site and I guess they can't empty that into a river? There are lots of other houses on the road, so this isn't somewhere remote, just normal suburbia.

The office for the development won't be open now until Thursday, so any information I can arm myself with in the meantime would be amazing.

G_M

Then I suspect the 2011 regulations will apply to you. See

http://www.southwestwater.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=8026

lotstodotoday

Thanks. A bit odd that a new build would have the sewers all specified as private... I will have to speak to them about it on Thursday then. Looks like there is legislation in the pipeline (sorry, terrible joke but couldn't resist!) to make adoption of new sewers mandatory. Really helpful link.